Common thread in mass shootings is mental illness

I can add neither perspective nor wisdom to the Florida school shooting issue. I can add only my sincere condolences and extreme sadness at the tragic and life-changing senseless slaughter that unfolded.

As you would expect, there is much passion surrounding the issue of gun control in the wake of such tragedies.

And those discussions are indeed long overdue.

Yet the devil is always in the detail and discussing gun control and actually moving legislation into law are two widely different issues.

Those who scoff at the subject of mental illness do a great disservice to this all-important national dialogue.

I can't help but think a sane and rational person would never commit such a heinous act. The element of mental illness is critical to the discussion.

But no amount of gun control nor improved mental illness screening will remove evil from society.

If someone, anyone is hellbent on committing evil, then their weapon of choice is irrelevant.

The passion that springs from such events has found a handy target in the National Rifle Association.

But to me, that is a shallow attempt to find a culprit in an organization instead of focusing on the individual who commits such crimes.

In the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre, there was an outcry against "bump stocks" as if that device were to blame. But unless I missed it, bump stocks remain legal.

In other words, we talk a good game but fall short of solutions.

The common thread in all of these episodes remains mental illness.

You can argue that mental illness combined with the ease of gaining access to a weapon is the deadly combination.

And I would agree.

But I suspect we focus on gun control because the issue of mental illness is perhaps beyond our control.

So now there will be marches and fiery rhetoric against the easy access to guns. We'll discuss the gun show loophole and the AR-15s and all sorts of quasi remedies.

And we'll urge the public to see something, say something.

And then someday -- God forbid -- we'll be debating another such tragedy with another bandaid solution.

But until we honestly discuss the role of mental illness, we won't be any closer to a solution.